THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



S57 



Mr. W, Fisher Hobbs (Boxted Lodge, Essex), 

 thought that upon the whole Mr. Bond's paper did him 

 very great credit, and was calculated to promote the 

 cause of education amongst the agricultural classes (Hear, 

 hear). There were certainly one or two points which he 

 should like to have seen treated more amply. Tliere 

 was also one upon which he could not altogether agree 

 with Mr. Bond : he alluded to a knowledge of the 

 dead languages. He (Mr. Ilobbs) hud always been 

 of opinion that '* knowledge was power," and he 

 believed that a man could not have that knowledge 

 of the sciences which was necessary at the present day 

 in connection with agriculture, unless he had some 

 acquaintance with those languages which taught him to 

 understand the derivation of tlie words generally made 

 use of. He considered it necessary, in the present 

 day, that young men should be educated in one or more 

 of the dead languages ; most certainly was this the case 

 as regarded Latin. Not less valuable, however, would 

 be a knowledge of modern languages, especially of 

 French, if not of German. If English agriculturists 

 wished to meet in the first classes of society, a know- 

 ledge of French, as well as of Latin, was absolutely 

 essential. The more education a farmer could give his 

 son between the age of 6 and 16, the better. There was 

 a time, however, when with scholastic training the farmer 

 mustcombineattainmentsin various agricultural sciences, 

 which, in his judgment, were better acquired at a college 

 like Cirencester than anywhere else. After leaving such 

 an establishment as that, and proceeding to learn prac- 

 tical agriculture, the youth should begin by putting his 

 hand to the plough (Hear, hear). When he (Mr. 

 Hobbs) left school, he was taught to go through every 

 department of practical farming (Hear, hear). His com- 

 plaint in afier life to his father was, that he had not 

 made him a better ploughman. He certainly could plough 

 a furrow or a stetch in a superior way.; but to the pre- 

 sent day he could not, if a man were not ploughing in 

 the best manner, jump off his horse and show him how 

 to do it (Hear, hear). There were various other 

 branches of practical farming that he had been taught, 

 and was fond of; and among these was the treatment 

 of diseases in horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs (Hear, 

 hear). He held that a young man was not degraded by 

 being able to bleed a horse, shear and slaughter a sheep, or 

 administer medicine to his stock (Hear, hear). Indeed 

 all such practical knowledge was, in his opinion , necessary 

 in the case of a farmer occupying a first-class position in 

 the present day, and with application and reading he 

 would of course be all the better. With regard to 

 his friend Mr. James's remarks, he thought they had 

 not been taken exactly in the way in which they were 

 intended to be understood (Hear, hear). What he un- 

 derstood Mr. James to say was, that if in the rural dis- 

 tricts there were not middle-class schools at a conve- 

 nient distance for the sons of practical farmers, they had 

 better be educated in the national schools, the same 

 as in Scotland, where the sons of the farmer and the 

 trader were educated together; for education'they would 

 have, and, if they could not acquire it in their own 

 neighbourhood in any other way, they went to a national 



day-school. Education was nowanabsolutenece8Bity,and 

 there was no pursuit in life that more demanded it than 

 practical farming (Hear, hear). Moreover, the farmers 

 enjoyed beyond all other men the great advantage of 

 being ever in the presence of the glorious works of 

 Nature ; and education would afford them the means of 

 looking " through Nature up to Nature's God." 

 (cheers). 



The Rev. Mr. James explained what he had intended 

 with regard to the schools to be selected for farmers' 

 sons. It was calculated, he said, that out of the eighteen 

 millions of population in this country, no less than 

 fifteen millions were in the receipt of incomes of less 

 than £"100 per annum. There was great difficulty in 

 finding good teachers in middle- class schools, and he 

 thought that where a person's income was under £100 

 per annum, and there was ro good middle-class school 

 in the neighbourhood, that person should set aside all 

 feelings of false pride, and avail himself of the good 

 national schools which were now to be found in every 

 district, conducted by practical certificated masters, and 

 thus consult the welfare of his children rather than his 

 own dignity (cheers). 



Mr. Bond then replied. He said gentlemen were 

 mistaken in supposing that he undervalued the classics ; 

 but he did not see how farmers' sons were to learn all 

 the classics as well as all the sciences which bore parti- 

 cularly upon agriculture (Hear, hear). He had no 

 hesitation in saying that he believed the sciences were 

 the more useful, and that one pound of science was 

 worth ten pounds of classics (Hear, hear). His chief 

 object in recommending the examination of boys at six- 

 teen was, that it might be a means of ensuring a better 

 class of schoolmasters. He had stated that the fault did 

 not rest with the schoolmasters, but with the farmers 

 themselves, who had not openly pronounced in favour of 

 a better education for their sons. He hoped the discus- 

 sion of that night would be a seed-bed for the future. 

 He was not irrevocably wedded to his own plan — all he 

 said to them was, " Do something: don't remain in a 

 state of inaction on this important subject. Any step 

 which you take with prudence and judgment can scarcely 

 fail to be in the right direction" (Hear, hear). 



On the motion of Mr. Baker, seconded by Mr. Sidney, 

 a vote of thanks was accorded to Mr. Bond for his paper; 

 and with a similar acknowledgment to Mr. Trethewy 

 for presiding, the proceedings terminated. 



WHOLE BARLEY AND SALT PROVED 

 VERY HEALTHY AND FATTENING 

 WHEN GIVEN TO SHEEP UPON 

 COMMON WHITE TURNIPS. 



Sir,— We are living in the great age of discovery, not 

 only in artificial manures, food for cattle and sheep, 

 implements in husbandry, but in every branch of agricul- 

 ture. If memory serves me rightly, about the year 1852 

 Mr. William Dainty, of Euston Heath, near Stamford, 

 was giving his sheep at turnips whole barley heavily 

 mixed with salt, the said ahearling sheep having been bought 



